


Unwanted

by TearoomSaloon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Comfort Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Virginity, Self-Doubt, fear of intimacy, feelings of unworthiness, that might make you cry, this is really feelings with some sensual bits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 02:18:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13308333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TearoomSaloon/pseuds/TearoomSaloon
Summary: That's how Ben felt, anyway. After all he'd done, how he'd been treated through childhood into adulthood, it made sense no one would want him. He hoped someone could grow to, but that might just be a fleeting dream.





	Unwanted

**Author's Note:**

> Abandon all hope ye who seek anything steamy

The first time Ben Solo kissed a girl, he was seventeen.

He couldn’t remember her name now, but he remembered what she looked like. Small, skinny as a stick, with roping coils of long blonde hair. Luke had left him in charge for the night as he traveled elsewhere on the island and Ben had never been good a avoiding mischief. One of his peers suggested they play a game and he set the stage, finding a spinner for them to use. He only played one round, but it hung still in the back of his memory.

He’d had a crush on her for the better part of a year, the mystery girl lost to the flames. It had started slow, his heart beating quickly, thundering like hooves in his chest. Her hair smelled of flowers and she tastes like fruit, like blissfulness and youth. Something so out of reach.

They were both blushing at the end and he tapped out, not wanting to end up kissing another girl that night, not with her on his breath. Nothing ever came of it but passing smiles, a tickle of fingers when they stood too closely. If she’d wanted more, she wasn’t clear about it and he, nervous, never made an advance.

His second kiss was the same mystery from his memory. Once the fire started, when his uncle was out cold and the flames licked too close for comfort, he kneeled in front of the temple in the damp soil. She lay in his arms, bleeding out too much to save. She reached up to his face, staining his cheek red with her fingertips.

She said his name softly; tears welled in her cornflower eyes. _Don’t, please_.

“I’m sorry.” He kissed her forehead then her lips. They tasted of iron and dirt, of regret and an unyielding pain.

He brushed her eyelids closed when the last breath left her lungs, letting her lie in an eternal sleep. It was best this way, if she left before learning all he could become; all the darkness and fear churning like a firestorm in his stomach. He wished, somewhere in his dying heart, that her parents would be able to grieve for her, to know she didn’t suffer long.

Picking up his blade, he left his softness in the dark dirt, buried it and his name with her before returning to the fray. He didn’t need either where he was going.

Kylo Ren forgot about his kiss until he met the scavenger girl, memories bubbling up like overboiled cream, hot and volatile. She looked nothing like his first love, her eyes sharp and birdlike, her teeth bared to him. She too was small and skinny, but her hair was dark, bundled up in knots on her head. And she hated him, unlike the last one. She snarled, spit, and split him open, broke him in two, fractured him down the core.

He wanted to open to her, wanted to listen to her. They shared a bond in the Force and he ached to learn more about this odd, unpredictable girl. If he weren’t careful, he might find himself returning to the charred temple, uncovering his lost heart and name for her, to give to her.

When Ben Solo felt hope for the first time in years, it was in the shape of a girl’s hand.

Their fingers brushed so slightly, so lightly, for too short of a time. He saw his future in her. The details were fuzzy, the timeline was lost, but she was there beside him, strong with him. She would stay by his side when the time was right, would stand beside him until the end of their time.

When they parted abruptly, a hollowness crawled its way into the depths of his chest, a sorrow so sinister it made his joints ache, made his bones tired. He couldn’t have anything so nice. He’d killed his first love, there was no guarantee he wouldn't mortally wound his new one, too. Ben Solo was lost and he couldn’t seem to find his way home.

She left him there, in the room of red. Told him their future was together, that he was meant to be with her, and then disappeared while he lay out cold on the black floor. All the power of the First Order was curled in his lap but it was meaningless without her.

Ben Solo came home a year later.

Hurt, lost, and confused, he returned to find his mother’s grave. He knelt in the raw earth, hands bolted to her headstone. He was the last one, the last Skywalker. The final mistake of a line of heroes, of villains. The world around him was cold, the air on this planet chilling. It cut through him, icicles into soft vulnerable flesh.

She greeted him when he had finished grieving for the day, his small, powerful, brown-haired girl. Her arms were folded across her chest, her eyes hard.

“Just because you’re hurt doesn’t mean any of us like you.”

He nodded—he knew—and he stepped around her into the warm light, seeking some shelter from the encumbering darkness that sat on his shoulders like an immobile weight.

She picked into him, all the days he stayed, inched into him like a needle, the sensation burning as she forced her toxin under his skin. _Why did you stay? Why did you come back? You’re Leia’s son, but you’re not welcome here forever._

Eventually he sighed, held up his hands to her onslaught. He was hunched over his mother’s grave, arranging flowers in the broken soil. “If you want to hurt me, to cut me down, you’re doing well. You can attack all you want elsewhere, but please, let me grieve in peace.”

He listened for her footsteps, tense until they disappeared from earshot. She must have known how much he ached for her too, how much hatred he carried for himself based on the way she thought of him.

She appeared in his room that night, leaning on the door. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t have it in him to glare and instead turned to her, tired. “You’re not.”

“I am.” She looked down at her toes. “I miss her too, and I’m taking it out on you. It’s not your fault.”

“We all know my choices only quickened her death.”

"They didn’t, Ben.”

He looked up at his name, like a lost dog coming home to its master.

“She believed in you until the last breath, that you’d do the right thing.” She had a hard time meeting his eyes. “Did you leave them?”

“I did.” He’d vanished from the First Order, going quietly after putting in the plans to make things right once more. Hux had been killed months ago—he knew the admiral he’d left in charge would make the right choices.

Rey crossed his room slowly, as if walking on ice, trying not to slip. She rested her hands on his shoulders, her gaze full of remorse. “I hurt you because I ached. I shouldn’t have.”

“I deserve it.”

“You don’t.” She sat beside him, laid her head on his shoulder. “You’ve been hurt too, for so long. I led you to think I wouldn’t stop believing in you, wouldn’t abandon you like everyone else in your life had, but I…” She let out a shaking breath. “I was just as bad. But I want to believe in you again, support you, if I can. You’ve come such a long way, Ben.”

They sat, silent, as time escaped its bottle. In the growing starlight, he felt less alone, her warm body beside him, her heart beating red in her chest. She sighed and took his hand in both of hers, laying it in her lap. He closed his eyes to the sensation of her fingers brushing along his palm, exploring the planes of his skin. It tickled, tingled, and breathed a new life into his necrotic heart.

“I love you, you know,” he said softly to no one.

"I know.” Her voice was steady. “I know, Ben.”

She stood when the moon had begun to die, taking both of his hands, placing her bare feet in the space between his. Leaning in, she kissed his forehead, her lips light as a sunbeam, scalding him down to the bone. She rested there against him, against his sturdiness.

“Sleep well, when you find it,” she said, squeezing his fingers in hers. Her departure was soundless like a summer breeze and her heat lingered when her image only remained behind his eyelids. In the sheets, he could feel where she had lingered on his bed, his cold feet migrating to the spot. His dreams were dark and empty, restless and short. It was hard to relax here, to calm himself in such a hostile place. At least she was beginning to make it better—at least, he hoped she was.

She greeted him at breakfast. Her lips weren’t quite in a smile, not quite happy, but she needed to be there, it seemed. Making up for the anger she’d thrown at him, all the poisonous words. All the thorns he was still picking out of the bottom of his feet, the crooks of his hands.

He wasn’t sure if she had a plan, but the following week was clockwork. She stayed with him through breakfast before departing to finish her daily tasks. She wasn’t the leader of the Resistance, but she was important, a cog that kept the whole machine running. When she completed all her tiresome, tedious jobs, she showed up at his door, asking to sit with him for a few hours. They talked in soft voices, like the whispers of wind through tall meadow grasses. She wanted to know about his mother, about his father, how his childhood had treated him. He felt like he was tearing into long-healed scars, but she always slathered salve on them and stitched him back up.

Three months into this routine, Ben Solo experienced his third kiss.

It was poignant in a way he never expected a kiss to be. She brushed tears from his cheeks before covering his mouth with hers, holding him steady in her grounding arms. They were still, her comfort pouring like spring water down into his side of their Force bond. This wasn’t an act of passion, or want, or lust. It was an action that required no follow-up, no words of explanation when they parted.

“I never want you to feel like that again,” she said softly, lips close to his ear. “And I am so…outraged someone made you hurt in that way.”

“I deserved it.”

“Ben.” He could hear the sob threatening to break her anger, to split her voice. “You were a child. No child deserves that. No child should ever feel so unwanted.”

“You did.”

She laughed and brushed a tear from her cheek with her palm. “Yeah, I did. Maybe that’s why I’m so cross.”

“You didn’t deserve that.”

"No, you’re right, I didn’t. But just because you were groomed into a monster doesn’t mean you deserved to be one, or treated like one before.”

He sighed, focusing his attention to her fingers tracing invisible lines on his skin. “Could you kiss me again?”

She did. She kissed him until both of their faces were wet, streaked with salt-stained tears. He held her as she cried for him, her own heart breaking where his should have, carrying his burden. The pillowcase was damp by the time she’d run out of tears, her eyes dry and irritated.

“Can I stay with you tonight?” she asked, a hiccup stuck in her voice.

Standing, he wandered slowly to his dresser. “Do you want a shirt?”

“Please.”

She took his pajamas into the ‘fresher to change and he shuffled out of his clothes, opting for something more comfortable. He climbed into bed and switched their pillows, fluffing hers until it looked soft and plush.

Her eyes looked just as horrible after she’d washed her face, the redness bleeding to her cheeks and her nose. She crawled into his bed as though she were asking permission to be there, hesitant and lost. He met her in the middle, pulling her close, letting her know it was okay, that she wasn’t burdening him.

“Thank you,” she said softly, her fingers bunched into his t-shirt.

He kissed her forehead, hoping her dreams were easy on her tonight.

The days were growing shorter as winter began to spread across the planet. She stayed in his bed most nights now, unable to leave his side when she wasn’t needed elsewhere. They never touched outside of closed doors, but they were seen together frequently. He was growing to need her, a beacon calling him home though the ocean’s merciless storm.

It took a year for him to open to her fully, his wounds so deep they scarred his bones. She lay on his chest as he voiced the last of his pains, let it manifest in the air as something real, something almost tangible. She let out a small hum, her ear situated over his heart.

She rose onto her arms without a word and kissed him, the same way she had the first time. Waiting a beat against his lips, she moved to his chin, his jaw, the vulnerable skin of his throat. She sighed before reaching for the hem of his shirt.

“What do you need?”

“To touch you,” she said in a small voice. “I’ve loved you back for a year now. It’s only fair, don’t you think?”

He wasn’t sure what she thought was fair, but he raised his arms when she beckoned, letting her expose him. The air was cold on his skin but she moved to cover it quickly, hiding his fear with her body. Her lips found the center of his chest. They were light as they kissed down to his stomach, fluttering like bird wings against sensitive skin. When she reached the waistband of his pants, she sat on her haunches and pulled her shirt off before divesting him his last layer of protection.

“I’m not sure I deserve this.”

She stopped, her hands tracing the lines of his hips. “Why?”

“Because I don’t, Rey.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” She sighed. “You deserve so much more than I’m capable of giving you. Let me at least give you this.”

He struggled to watch her, tears caught in her eyes, her body bare and tangled up with his. Her hands had migrated to his knees, soothed softly down his thighs and back up again, their pattern aimless. She kissed the inside of one knee and then the other, the sweetness of her gesture remaining even when her lips left. She pressed her breath to his skin, resting against him.

“Can we switch?”

She looked up from tracing his moles. “Why?”

“I feel like you should to be in my place. I should be in yours.”

“I _want_ to give you this, Ben.” She kissed his thigh. The snap in her voice disappeared. “I want you to have me, all of me. Heart and soul, body and mind.”

She wouldn’t listen to his argument, kissing down one thigh before moving to the other. Slowly she moved to his cock, one hand massaging around his hip, the other holding him steady. She kissed his tip and down his shaft before wrapping her lips around him—

“ _Rey_.” He freaked, sat up, heart beating wildly in his chest. She looked wounded, emotions cracking down her exterior. “You shouldn’t.”

"You know your damage hurts me too. I ache, seeing you like this.” She sighed, burying her face in her hands.

"I’m not worthy—”

“You’re _goddamn_ worthy, Ben Solo,” she bit. “You’re worthy of me, of this, of feeling loved. I want to give myself to you, my heart, by body, whatever you need to stop the fracture in you from growing.”

He looked away, unable to face her.

“Please, for me.”

For her.

He lay back down, his fingers clenching around the sheets. He was scared, though he wouldn’t voice it. This was the first time in his life that love was working out for him, wasn’t dead in his arms, buried in blood-soaked earth. Love was running her hands down his legs, the act so emotionally charged it threatened to strangle his heart. He might not be breathing when she finished with him, he may not exist.

She kissed down him once more before taking him into her mouth. Her inexperience was clear, but the feelings she let run across his skin made expertise an afterthought. He gasped, confused, nervous, and unsure of how this felt. It was good, but it still felt like it was more than he had earned.

"Breathe.” She kissed the junction of his thigh with her wet mouth. “Just breathe, Ben. Give in to me.”

And he did. Her pace found a rhythm and soon he would be lost in her, gone from this measly plane of existence. This wasn’t right, somehow. He shouldn’t feel like this, he shouldn’t feel good.

She rose to kiss him before he could find release. Her mouth was hot and tasted vaguely of his skin. She stayed with him for long minutes, kisses changing from frantic to slow and smooth, full of emotion and a rawness he wasn’t expecting.

It took her longer to figure out the next part, how they would fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. It was…incredible to be in her, wrapped deep in her heart. Her hips kept a steady pace and she held his head in her hands, cradled him to her.

“I love you, Ben,” she said softly around one of many kisses. “You’ve grown to mean so much to me, I hate seeing you hurt.”

He didn’t want to hurt, didn’t want to wound her. He drew his hands slowly up her back and looked up into her eyes. They were dark in the moonlight, but so bright, so tender. With a free hand, she pushed his hair back to let her lips linger on his forehead. He wiped a tear from her cheek before it fell, lacing his fingers back into her chestnut locks. She leaned into his touch, turned her head to kiss the middle of his palm.

His climax was smooth, bittersweet. He held her there with him, feeling for the first time that the world was all right. That living, existing, was something more than just waking every day and sleeping at night. She kissed him feverishly through it, her own need and want caught up with his.

She pulled him into her arms when his senses returned, held him so tightly to her chest he thought he might break.

“I never knew I could have a love like this either,” she said into the sweat-stained curls of his hair. “I didn’t think I could be…worthy…until I began to notice the way you looked at me. Until I paid attention to you.” She pressed her lips to his temple. “I’m scared too, of this, of having you, of getting close.”

“You were afraid of opening to me?”

“I thought you’d reject me. I’m not immune to insecurity. I’m only human, and you are too.” She squeezed him tighter. “I’m so glad you let me in, Ben.”

He raised his head to kiss her. “Thank you for pushing me.”

“I meant it. You deserve the galaxy. If I have to give it to you in pieces, I will.”

He would take it in pieces, rebuild it to be full of what they longed for, all the needed, and give it back to her. Piece by piece.

**Author's Note:**

> that was the most difficult sex scene I have ever written


End file.
